Science confirms Annie Hall:
Doctor in Brooklyn: Why are you depressed, Alvy?
Alvy’s Mom: Tell Dr. Flicker.
[Young Alvy sits, his head down — his mother answers for him]
Alvy’s Mom: It’s something he read.
Doctor in Brooklyn: Something he read, huh?
Alvy at 9: [his head still down] The universe is expanding.
Doctor in Brooklyn: The universe is expanding?
Alvy at 9: Well, the universe is everything, and if it’s expanding, someday it will break apart and that would be the end of everything!
Alvy’s Mom: What is that your business?
[she turns back to the doctor]
Alvy’s Mom: He stopped doing his homework!
Alvy at 9: What’s the point?
Alvy’s Mom: What has the universe got to do with it? You’re here in Brooklyn! Brooklyn is not expanding!
Doctor in Brooklyn: It won’t be expanding for billions of years yet, Alvy. And we’ve gotta try to enjoy ourselves while we’re here!
— From classic early scene in Woody Allen’s 1977 movie, Annie Hall.
“Life on Earth has another good 1.75 billion years to go, study says.”
— Headline, NBC, yesterday. (Al Gore, James Hansen, Paul Ehrlich, et al all hardest it.)
Whether or not NBC itself has anywhere near as lengthy a lifespan ahead of it remains very much in question, of course.
Related: Hide the decline! “UN climate panel: Hmm, how can we selectively edit these inconvenient truths to outwit those anti-science denialists?” From Erika Johnsen at Hot Air.
